Touching Distance
by Emmeebee
Summary: Steve wasn't prepared for the impact of seeing her again.


A/N: Written for the HetSwap Exchange 2019 for DesertVixen.

* * *

Steve hadn't been prepared for the impact of seeing her again. One moment, he was ducking into a random office to hide; the next, she was there, separated from him by a mere window. Glass, blinds, and nothing else.

Peggy Carter was even more breathtaking in person than she was in her photograph. Her hair had that familiar curl to it, her brown eyes were striking, and she still had the ability to command any room — even, apparently, one she wasn't in.

The sight of her, alive and breathing and _vibrant_, so close yet so far away, twisted his heart into knots.

Everything in him wanted to run to her — to hear her voice and see her smile and feel her in his arms. He'd thought the part of him that wanted a quiet life with a wife and children had died in the ice, but now, it all came rushing back with a vengeance.

He didn't want marriage. He wanted marriage with Peggy.

The only thing that kept him from going to her was the knowledge that if he did, he might not have the strength to leave. Certainly not in time.

That was a risk he couldn't afford to take. His friends, and their future, were depending on him to complete his mission. He had mistakes to make up for and people to save, and Peggy wouldn't want him to jeopardise that for her sake.

Steve knew all those things like breathing. Still, walking away from her was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

-x-

The plan had been to go back, replace the stones, and then return directly to his own time. But a few minutes and hours one way or another had no meaning when he had access to Pym particles; no matter when he activated them, they could take him to his destination with needlepoint accuracy.

Steve found himself going back to check on her again.

Once he returned to 2023, that would be it; he would not be able to come back again. It would be too dangerous. This was his last chance to see her, and while he could have resisted the urge, he had no desire to.

After returning the Tesseract to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, trying to avoid anyone who had seen him what was only seconds ago for them, he went back to Peggy's office. All he needed was to see her one more time.

But when he peered through the window, Peggy wasn't on the other side. The files she'd been reading were sitting on the desk, but she herself was absent — once again, she had been and gone in an instant.

Steve didn't know how he was going to find her again. It was such a large complex, and searching it in the hope of finding her without being detected would just be courting trouble.

Sighing, feeling as if something precious had just slipped through his grasp, he raised his arm, ready to go home.

'This is a restricted zone. What are you do— _Steve_?'

The sound of his name in _that _voice stilled his hand.

He turned, the hair on the back of his neck pricking up. After all this time, all his mourning and attempts at acceptance, it was hard to believe she was finally real, here and no longer separated by glass or time or anything but questions. 'Hello, Peggy.'

Peggy drew her gun before he could blink. 'You must be an imposter. Tell me who you're working for right now or you'll be hobbling out of here with a leg cast and an armed guard.'

'It's a long story. I'm going to raise my hands.' Slowly, Steve did so, showing her they were empty. 'When I went into the ice, I didn't die. I was just frozen, waiting, until someone got me out. Until _S.H.I.E.L.D. _got me out.'

Her aim didn't waver. 'If one of our rescue missions had worked, I would have been informed.'

In for a penny, in for life. 'I don't mean your S.H.I.E.L.D.; I'm talking about the S.H.I.E.L.D. of the future.'

-x-

The second he'd told Peggy the truth, he'd known he could never leave. Instead, he had started to reconcile himself to life in this timeline. It was surprisingly easy; after all, if he'd lived the life that had been meant for him, he would never have left it.

His first task, after swearing Peggy and Howard to secrecy, was telling them everything that had happened between their time and his. Hydra's infiltration, Bucky, beings from other worlds, _Thanos _… the little he'd heard about Tony's encounter with Obadiah Stane…

Forewarned was forearmed, and someone had to be. Perhaps, in this new timeline, Tony would never even have to fight Thanos, let alone wield the stones.

His second task was finding and saving Bucky. It was difficult and took years to accomplish, but he, Peggy and Howard eventually managed to track down the current location of the Winter Soldier and free him from Hydra's grasp. The brainwashing would take even longer to deprogram, but with the full weight of Stark Industries behind them, he was sure they would succeed.

His third task was to live.

One day, he knew, he would have to go back to talk to _his _Bucky and _his _Sam. In their timeline, Steve Rogers had ceased to exist. He would have to find a way to return, explain his absence, and convince them he was happy.

But for now, he would simply enjoy life in this new timeline, one where he could build a family with Peggy with Bucky and Howard by his side, and where he could be an uncle to Tony, giving him the affection he had missed out on the first time around.

-x-

They were words he'd never thought he would get the chance to say. At first, when he'd been young and scrawny, no one had been interested in him that way, despite Bucky's best attempts to find a girl for him.

And then, after he went to war and met Peggy, there had only ever been her. Natasha had tried convincing him to try again, and maybe he would have liked the women she introduced him to if he'd given them a chance, but it had always felt wrong.

Every daydream, every secret hope, had been about her.

Now, standing at the front of the church with Bucky as his witness and Howard as Peggy's, he was glad he'd waited. Peggy looked like a dream in her elegant white dress, and he was filled with a sense of peace he hadn't felt in a long time as he gazed into her sharp brown eyes.

'I do,' he said when the preacher asked him one of the most important questions of his life.

The only thing he enjoyed more than saying those words was hearing Peggy say them back.


End file.
